1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a surgical implant for treating obesity in a patient. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a surgical implant for constricting the stomach of a patient to treat obesity in a patient.
2. Background of Related Art
A variety of different approaches are known for the treatment of obesity in a patient. These approaches can be of the non-surgical variety, e.g., dieting, or of the surgical variety, e.g., gastric bypass, small bowel bypass etc. Where non-invasive non-surgical procedures such as dieting rely on the will power of a patient and may not be effective, invasive surgical procedures such as bypass surgery can be risky and have undesirable side effects. As such, less invasive surgical devices for constricting or reducing the capacity of the digestive tract, e.g., the stomach have been developed. These devices include gastric bands which are positioned about the stomach to constrict the stomach and devices such as inflatable balloons for reducing the reservoir capacity of the stomach. Each of these types of devices produce a sense of satiety in a patient to reduce the patient's desire to ingest food.
Although the above-identified devices have had some success, improvements to these devices would be desirable.